YouTube To Introduce Mobile Offline Video Viewing in November

Soon, you’ll be able to watch your favorite YouTube videos old and new without an Internet connection, YouTube parent company Google announced late last night on their blog. The feature will come exclusively to the YouTube mobile app, and will launch in November.

The change will allow users to save YouTube clips onto their phone (or supported mobile device) for up to 48 hours, so that they can be viewed when an Internet connection is absent. The videos will still run advertisements beforehand (presumably thanks to the tech built into the YT mobile app), but will remain free to watch.

“This upcoming feature will allow people to add videos to their device to watch for a short period when an Internet connection is unavailable, mentioned Google on the YouTube Partners blog.

“So your fans’ ability to enjoy your videos no longer has to be interrupted by something as commonplace as a morning commute.”

YouTube uploaders who wish to not enable this feature on their content will have the option to disable it, blocking viewers from viewing that specific content offline. While many content creators likely won’t disable such a feature, as ads will still run, there’s no telling at the moment how this feature could potentially affect individual YouTube networks, such as Machinima, IGN, Polaris, and others. YouTube has likely considered these types of scenarios, but given that not all networks manage content similarly, we could see a video ecosystem where a portion of videos can be viewed offline,  while others are only viewable while an Internet connection is present.

Regardless, this feature is a clear benefit to YouTube users, and certainly a very momentous step for Google to take. How the company plans to make this feature work across a variety of devices remains to be seen, but since Google says it’s a feature specifically for “YouTube’s mobile apps,” it’s a safe assumption that it’ll work on any device that can run the official app.

But when it’s all said and done, your favorite cat videos will probably be viewable offline. Well, hopefully.